Canned Corn for Christmas
by practice4morale
Summary: Nina hasn't been herself since the baby came and Maes is starting to worry. Okay, he's been worried for a while. It's been over two months. Something has to be done. The holidays just aren't the same without Nina waking everyone up at four every single morning out of December to check if Santa screwed up and came early. Not that he exists. A 'Flame Legacy' Christmas one-shot.


Author's Note: Happy holidays. Belated.

Check out my upcoming FMA(B) alternate universe fancomic, 'Drastic Measures,' on deviantart (link on profile). Coming soon :D btw, it's AU, not Flame Legacy related. Except for a couple one-shots.

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Canned Corn for Christmas

The slang for it was 'baby blues,' but calling it that made Nina think about an infant jazz band, so we got used to calling it postpartum depression like the doctor did, a slightly lesser evil. Nina hated doctors. She had her reasons. I knew. Honestly, her biggest issue with them may have just been the clip-boards and white lab coats. She'd had bad experiences with people in lab coats. She didn't say it out loud, though. Just grumbled and pretended her reasons for hating doctors were petty.

"We're renowned State Alchemists specialized in alkehestry and bio-alchemy," she used to say before every OB appointment. "What the hell can a bunch of certified physicians tell us that you can't figure out just by putting your hand on my stomach?"

We'd looked forward to the constant check-ups ending. With Nina's small build and history of spinal injury, we really had no choice but to be careful. Having the baby and coming home from the hospital was supposed to have been a relief from all that stress. But Nina came home stressed. She came home more restless than she had been before the baby came, which was saying something. She was anxious and touchy and freaked out every time someone offered to take the baby for a while so she could relax.

"I'm relaxed when he's with me," she'd say, rocking our son like he didn't need a cradle. "He's relaxed when he's with me. All works out, am I right?"

Mom said baby blues wore off after a couple of weeks. It had been nine.

Every day it was like Nina was less and less herself. Every day I had to think out of character to counter every out of character thing she did. Whatever the childbirth hormones had done to her was seeming bleakly permanent. I didn't like to think that way, like it was even a possibility. But it was.

"Maes," she said with a little too much air in her voice. "You're pretty much the best for trying and stuff, but spontaneous outings aren't realistic. Like, at all."

I gripped the wheel with my gloved hands and tried not to show signs of amusement at the word, 'realistic.' Never been part of my wife's vocabulary unless maybe she was talking about something completely unrealistic. She'd gotten down to earth since the baby. I'd always been in charge of that part of our relationship.

I drove straight through the intersection instead of taking the left that would've eventually redirected us back toward the house. Nina tugged the seatbelt away from her chest a little bit and twisted it in a silent protest. Made me happy in some odd way, seeing her fiddle like that, like how she'd gum her lips when she was bored or nervous. She'd been unnaturally still lately.

"I need to nurse," she said. "You said we were just going to the store. Jimmy's going to fuss if I don't get back to feed him."

"You pumped before we left, right?" I said, knowing she had.

"He fusses with the bottle."

"All babies fuss with the bottle."

"Yeah, but my boobs are getting sore."

"Your boobs are always sore."

Nina stamped her foot at the right corner of the passenger's side's floor like she was showing me how to slam on the brakes. That's right. I wasn't allowed to fight back anymore.

"I agreed to the store, Maes!" she said.

I didn't look away from the road to see her expression. I knew what it was, the stone face that left all the anger up to those narrowed blue eyes. Her voice had gotten this toxic quality to it in the past couple weeks and every once in a while it showed on her face.

I let out a breath through my nose and tried my best to make it smooth. I spoke softly to counter her tone. "We are going to a store."

I slowed to a stop as the next intersection turned red. I caught her eyeing my hands, hoping for some sign that I planned on getting into the turn lane. I kept my eyes forward.

"Just let me drive, okay?" I said.

"A store," she said. "Very nice. What you did, playing with words. Clever. Charming as ever, honey."

"Dear God, Nina. I'm doing the best I can with what I've got."

She folded her arms and faced forward like she was keeping me out of a hug. "I said I don't feel like doing anything. Making me do stuff doesn't help."

"You've been saying that for two months."

"Doctor says it's normal."

"Doctor's going to put you on crazy pills if you're still doing it by next appointment."

"Doing what exactly?"

I shrugged against my seatbelt. "I don't know. You called it, 'it.' I just said it like you said it."

"Yeah, but what do you think 'it' is?" she said. The hint of sincerity in her tone caught me off guard. She hadn't asked for my personal opinion on anything in a while.

I blinked. "Well," I said. "Well." I bit hard on my lip and felt a pang of comfort in following Nina's habit.

"Whatever," she sighed. "You don't have to answer that. I know what it is."

"It's some kind of fog," I said.

I gripped the wheel tight again to drive on through the changing light. Nina didn't fidget this time as I blatantly continued to drive in the opposite direction of our house. I panned my gaze to her. She was looking at me, the back of her head tilted against her seat's leather headrest, her eyes grey and unblinking. I gazed forward again and took a right toward the shopping center.

"Like a fog?" she said.

"A humid one," I said. "One you can breathe in, but you're not getting as much air as you're used to and it's making you tired."

She nodded gently. "Keep going."

I tried not to look as uncomfortable as I was. I'd stepped onto sensitive ground and I usually made a point not to say stuff that could have an impact unless I knew what I was saying.

"Go on," she said. "You're doing pretty good so far."

I sighed. Somehow doing pretty good just made it worse. "It's not killing you," I said softly. "Just takes a little out of you, and as soon as you gain it back, it takes a little more. Makes you stagnant. Does it so slow. You don't even notice, really. You're just," I looked at her. "Slower than you should be."

Her expression hardened. "So, I'm not measuring up to my proper speed?"

Damn.

"No," I said. "I mean, yes. But, just…" I shook my head. "It's got nothing to do with what you're doing. It's 'it,' okay? I didn't mean you weren't 'fast enough' or whatever the heck you got from that just now. I wasn't even talking about speed. I meant you."

"What are you trying to say, then?" she said. "Do you even know more or less at all? You just said it had nothing to do with me."

"Yeah, but I was referring to the slowness part then. Now I'm talking about you as you, alright?"

"Can we just go home?"

"No, just listen," I said.

She chuckled like I was a rookie subordinate. "I'm going to do you a ridiculously gorgeous favor and tell you to stop talking."

"It's not my fault. You're confusing me."

"I'm confusing you?"

I swerved into the turn lane that would put us in the mall parking lot. The move was a little too abrupt and jerked Nina's petite body against her seat. She glared like I'd done it on purpose, which I kind of had, but I'd meant to jerk the car, not her.

"There was all this stuff we talked about doing," I said, less defensive now. "The two of us, when we got out of all that crap in Xing," I said. "We talked about it at Uncle Al's. Talked about it when we got kidnapped. Talked about it at the hospital all that time afterward. Talked about it ever since."

"Yeah, yeah. We've talked—"

"Don't interrupt." I pulled up into an open handicapped space, the only empty spot within a five minute distance from the entrance. I parked.

"There was all this stuff we were going to do," I said. "And I got excited. When we talked about being State Alchemists and getting married and having a family like people are supposed to do, I got really excited about getting to do all of it. I really did. But a big part of that was you'd be doing it with me. That was the part that made me really want to do all of it. Really want to do it and really look forward to all of it, you understand?"

She'd unbuckled her belt and was sitting with her knees hugged to her chest like a preschooler at circle time. I looked twice at the unbuckled belt and realized, whether conscious or otherwise, she'd made an unspoken commitment to actually getting out of the car with me when I was done talking. If I managed to keep saying the right things.

"You know I'm an expert at taking it easy, right?" I said. "I spent the first eighteen years of my life taking it easy. I don't mind if you stay home all the time and make yourself a slave to our son's nursing schedule. I really don't. What's hard is when I realize you're not doing it because you want to. You're doing it because the fog's making you slow and you're struggling just keeping up with doing nothing."

"Yeah?" she said. Her voice had a shaky quality that made her seem suddenly fragile. Her eyes were doing that thing where they'd get big, but scrunch just a little underneath to control tears trying to form.

I rested my hand on her knee without thinking about it. She didn't like me getting touchy after an argument, postpartum or otherwise. I must've shown something in my face, though, because she rotated her knobby kneecap to fit better under my palm before I could move away. Her knee was cold, even through my glove. She was the kind of person who, when she got cold, took a while to warm back up. I rubbed her knee lightly as I spoke.

"You're always telling me how love is an action, not a desire," I said. "Well, I…"

I drew my hand away from her knee and pulled my gloves off, finger by clumsy finger. I took a chance and touched her cheek like I was wiping off a tear in advance. She bowed her head against my hand, letting me hold the left side of her face for her.

I faked a cough to mask the awkward pause. "Well, Nina, you know I'm not going to leave you behind, right? You know I'll stay at home with you when you need me to."

She nodded against my palm.

"You know you're not disappointing me when you're like this," I said. "Right?'

Her nod this time was a little sloppier, like maybe she was in the midst of deciding if she really did know that.

"You're not making me miss out on stuff," I said. "Seriously, I don't need to go out Christmas shopping with you today. I usually like homemade stuff better at Christmas than store-bought gifts. I just remember how excited you got last year when the mall's Santa had a real beard, how we got banned from the second level of the mall for the day because you pulled his beard too hard and made him curse in front of the kids."

"Well, duh," Nina said, drawing her face away from my hand to look at me. "Someone had to do it."

"I still have that mug," I said. "With the picture. Had secret dealings with the photographer while you were busy telling the other kids to wait their freaking turns."

"Wait, seriously?" she said, sitting up straight in her seat.

She looked animated, actually interested in something. It made my breath catch. I glanced to the side for a split moment, cleared my throat. "Yeah, it's hidden at the back of my side of the closet. You know, behind the sweaters I'm never going to wear but you say look really great on a closet shelf?"

I felt her wiry hand grip my arm. I looked down at her. She was actually kind of smiling. She shook my arm.

"Dang it! That's pretty much the best thing ever." She pushed her lip into a pout. "Why the hell'd you keep it to yourself all this time?"

"Your parents come over during the holidays," I said. "A lot."

"So?"

"So, you're mom always makes the coffee because she's a snob about instant."

"Yeah, and?" Nina gave my arm an extra anticipatory squeeze.

"So, that picture was taken, like, the moment after you yanked poor Santa's beard, okay?"

Nina set her chin on her knuckles and leaned her elbow on the dashboard like a kid hearing a campfire story.

I took a breath. "So, he's writhing mid 'F' bomb, and you're clinging to his beard for dear life half toppling off his lap, and then there's that billowy snowflake dress of yours billowing at the perfect angle for a shot of you panty-flashing the camera in Toyland." I pulled my gloves back on my chilled fingers. I gave Nina another look. "Makes for a pretty bad impression as your spouse for your mom to be serving my father in-law fancy coffee out of that particular holiday mug. Hence its respective place in the back of my side of the closet."

I'd expected a laugh at this point, or maybe just a smirk and a, "That would kind of be the best thing ever." Instead, Nina stared up at me blankly until a thin tremble ran up her body and I caught her face breaking just before she let her forehead fall forward against my red coat. I paused for a moment, not really sure of what to do. She'd gotten numb over the past couple months and I was a little out of practice at drying tears.

"Maesy," she said with a crack in her voice. She nuzzled her face in my chest so her voice was muffled. "Can you," she sniffed, "be in the picture with me this time?"

I slid my arms around her, felt her warming up nestled against me. "Only if I get the left knee. I want to make sure the photographer gets my good side."

"Right knee," she mumbled. "I want to look better than you on this year's Christmas card."

"What about the thing we were going to do with Jim in the little Santa hat?"

"We can cut out his face and stick it somewhere. Call it good. He's cute wherever you put him."

I hugged her. "Bad Santa, hot Mommy, severed baby head? I'm all in."

Honestly, I'd used to really hate Christmas. Not because I hated the holidays, but because Christmas happened during cold and flu season. Everyone was out doing snowball fights and caroling and all those excessive seasonal traditions. I was on the couch feeling like crap with pneumonia. Sophie was drinking hot chocolate. I was drinking homeopathic twig tea. Sophie had a tricycle under the tree. I had a picture book about a boy riding a tricycle because my lungs couldn't sustain that kind of cardio activity for themselves. Honestly, by the time I'd made it into my teens, I was more than ready to hunt Santa down and yank out his beard. Of course, snowfall screwed with barometric pressure like nothing else, so if I'd actually gone outside to 'hunt Santa down,' I probably would've been on my knees, puking from the ache before I'd made it out of Resembool.

Anyway, Nina was kind of my hero for making that tacky mall Santa cuss in front of the kids.

Nina set her 'handicapped' permit on our dashboard while I went around to get her door for her like a gentleman. We didn't usually have to pull the parking permit out. Nina had healed up pretty well since her spine had been messed up in Xing four years back. Still, this was the biggest mall within range of Central, and, with it being a Friday afternoon in December, the only normal parking available was too far from the entrance to risk Nina trekking it during ice weather.

Nina took my hand and let me pull her sluggishly from her seat, making herself flop ragdoll style so I'd have to work for it. She stared up at me smugly as I let her be difficult. I hugged her in one arm and shut the door behind her.

"Hey," I said, giving her my arm. "I love it when you're okay, but if you get tired again and you need me to take you home, I love you when you're tired, too. That make sense?"

She nodded. "Tons."

As we walked to the crosswalk and waited for the passing cars to give us the right of way they were supposed to, I watched Nina make an effort to disguise rubbing her back with adjusting her purse over her shoulder. Snowy weather didn't just make for achy automail. It made for achy joints altogether. I decided not to bring it up. She seemed to be having a good time being okay. Didn't need to talk about the not okay bits.

"I hate snow," she said, stepping over the crosswalk with me. "Hate it."

"Thought you liked it?" I said, glancing at the old, stamped in snow that had come down a couple days ago.

"I do," she said. "I did. I still do. But it's all just so…" She bit her lip. "Everywhere."

"Mm."

"Like, you get me? Like, it's on the road and the houses, on the cars, got to scrape it off the driveway or you're snowed in for eight weeks."

Eight weeks.

Eight weeks trapped in that white room. White walls, white floor, white sheets on the white-framed bunk beds. Nina's personal hell.

We stepped off the crosswalk and she stopped at the open doors while other shoppers continued to go in and out like we weren't there. She hugged my arm.

"I didn't mean that," she said.

I patted her head. "I know you didn't."

"It's just so white, you know? It's really white." She nodded in agreement with herself. "It's kind of very absolutely everywhere. Just turns stuff into nothing. Won't go away."

"I can't eat canned corn anymore," I said.

She peered up at me, paused for a while, silent like she was figuring out if I needed to be figured out.

"Yeah, you can," she said plainly. "You pretty much live off the stuff."

I shook my head. "Not the canned stuff."

"But you ate it at your birthday. It was your present from Sophie. The special organic brand that's got better texture or something. She had to go all the way out to that healthy-people supermarket in Dublith to find it for you."

"Puked it up afterword," I said quietly. No one was listening, but right then I felt like everyone was. "Just nerves, you know? Freaked me out eating it straight out of the can like that again."

"Corn?"

I nodded. "Can't do it. Been four years. Just can't."

"You never said," she muttered. I wasn't sure if she was feeling betrayed or guilty.

"I…" I trailed off and thought back to a moment ago, how she'd tried to hide the fact that her back was sore. "I guess it's nice not making it a thing. Like, having problems that are so small you can actually pretend they aren't there."

"It's weird that it's corn though," she said, proceeding into the shopping center.

I shrugged. "Not really. All that PTSD crap's supposed to hit you where it hurts, you know? That therapist guy at the hospital…"

"Dublith?"

"No, the one in Xing. Came from the Embassy because of your parents' military insurance or whatever."

"Oh," said Nina, hardly impressed. "The one who was very much into group therapy because he was too lazy to do freaking individual sessions."

I nodded with a shudder. "I wouldn't want to be alone with that guy. He had a scary mustache."

She raised her eyebrows like she was now considering manipulating me into growing facial hair this winter. I guided her over to the back of the entryway near elevators and pretended I didn't suspect.

"Despite the mustache," I said, "he told us one useful thing. Said all that trauma stuff with the dreams and the flashbacks or whatever, it gets into the mundane and all the sudden, the stuff you never think about turns into a thing. A bunch of giant things you didn't know where important until they got messed up."

"Like how you had to claim the right side of the bed when we got married because that's the side of your bunk they put the oxygen tank way back when?"

I sank a little. I hadn't ever given her my reasoning for that decision. "Yeah, that."

"You've got major stoicism issues, baby," she said, patting my arm.

"Pot calling the kettle black."

"Yeah, but you're raven black. I'm more like mahogany black. You're way blacker."

I had to give her that. "Where to?" I said.

"Santa, much?" She smiled with her teeth showing. "And then you're going to buy me something really bad for me that Aunt Winry wouldn't let me eat while I was pregnant!"

Nina always talked like she'd been the only one oppressed by that gosh awful nine month pre-natal diet. I'd done it with her to be supportive like a good husband and now taking credit just made me feel like a pansy in conversation.

Nina dragged me up the escalator. Usually I preferred to just stay to the side and ride up with everyone else, but Nina was one of those pushy, obnoxious people who liked shoving their way ahead all the way up like they had somewhere to be that couldn't wait thirty seconds. It worked with her. She was tiny enough to be stealthy. I just ended up stepping on toes.

"Clumsy Mumsy!" said Nina, jerking me to the side as irritated shoppers stepped off behind us, giving me dagger eyes as they walked by.

"Where did that come from?" I said. "It doesn't even make sense. I'm Dadzy. You're Mumsy."

"Trying to be emasculating," she said.

"No, it just rhymed."

"You still suck at the escalator."

I laughed. She said it like the escalator was some kind of musical instrument.

"Yeah," I said. "Well, that's why I have you."

She patted my arm, smiling the way she did when I got obvious about flattery.

"Don't be holding me back," she chuckled. "That's all I can say."

She hooked her arm under mine and pulled me into the stream of shoppers, hugging close to keep from being pushed and shoved too much. I tried to keep my expression loose. I didn't like her talking about me holding her back. Didn't like anybody talking that way, not even joking around. Just bothered me. Side effect of being completely useless for eighteen years and nearly dragging my dad down with me. Got a complex about being behind.

"Hey," said Nina, tugging my red sleeve. "You okay?"

"Yep," I said. "Not a fan of crowds. That's all."

"I love crowds to death!" she said, picking up the pace a little.

Yeah, well, her life-force had been the definition of a crowd for two decades out of her life. Nina was a natural when it came to riding the current of Christmas shoppers, like she was right at home. I was not. I was a natural at taking my time and having a fair amount of personal space.

Nina got us to 'Toyland' and immediately started panning her gaze over the line of children, searching out weak spots where we might be able to cut. I looked ahead at the skinny guy in the green elf suit and recognized him from last year. I shoved Nina.

"Snap out of it," I said. "We're going by the book on this one. I bet you anything that elf's got us blacklisted from last year."

Nina raised her eyebrows. "Us?"

"You," I said. "I was trying not to point fingers."

Nina sighed. She looked out over the curving line of whining children, tired-looking parents, and a few rowdy groups of adolescent girls with too many shopping bags. I watched Nina tilt her chin up to look ahead at the display, the synthetic puffs of fake snow littered with giant plastic candy canes and a lone, disturbingly wide eyed gingerbread man. Her eyes darted back and forth from the elf and Santa in his throne, then over to the camera man. She was visualizing angles. No longer looking for weak points in the line. Nina was scouting for weak points in the system. She looked at the back end of the line, a mother with a sticky looking toddler coming to stand behind the hunched grandma with her two little grandkids.

"Nina," I said softly. "Is it really worth it?"

She nodded slowly, eyes fixed on the Santa in his giant chair. She tapped my chest with the back of her hand. "It's the same Santa." She smiled a little. "Same guy. I swear. Just got rid of the genuine beard."

I looked harder, thought back to my mug at the back of the closet. Yep. That potato-shaped nose was a giveaway in itself. It was our guy. He'd gone for a cotton beard this time around, though. He'd learned from his mistake.

"Damn, Nina," I said quietly. "You're going to give this guy nightmares."

Nina rolled her eyes. "Idiot. I already gave him nightmares last year. This year I'm going for a restraining order. Watch and learn. Santa's going to regret banning me from Toyland."

"I love you so much."

"Just remember," she said. "No matter what happens, bringing me here was more or less completely your idea."

She stepped out of my arm and drifted past the flow of people to the back of the line behind the mom with the sticky toddler. I looked both ways and crossed over myself a lot less gracefully.

As I stepped over runaway fluffs of fake snow to get to my tiny little wife, I noticed how her eyes were directed forward, focused on the colorful props and costumes. For the first time in a while, she actually had some pink back in her cheeks, though that could've just been the cold from earlier.

The light-up displays and blaring holiday tunes had always been overwhelming to me, almost claustrophobic. But the way Nina's whole face seemed to glow when she was around that much color was worth it to me. She'd always loved color, always hated empty white, before getting locked up in that white room in Xing had even been an issue. Some of her first memories were of the Portal, the very definition of pure emptiness. She'd even preferred the colors of blood and ash to that white emptiness. Her wedding gown had been custom-tailored with green ribbon, yellow beading, and blue lace just to take the edge off the excess of white material. Our cake had been smothered in bright purple frosting. Although, that had been my idea.

Watching her standing there in line on tip-toe to see over the other shoppers' heads, I began to realize for the first time that there may have been a deeper reason for why she was so wild about the holidays. Maybe the snow was overwhelming to her the same way the light-up displays and music were overwhelming to me, and maybe the light-up displays and music were what got her through it.

Maybe going out of the house two months ago, when the snow had just started to come down but the decorations hadn't yet gone up, had been harder on her than the baby blues. Maybe taking her to a place where the decorations would've been too much for a lot of people was exactly what she'd needed.

Maybe she was dreading the week after Christmas when all the decorations would come down and the white would return to emptiness. Maybe that was why her eyes still held that slight heaviness, that almost untraceable melancholy that I'd memorized in her smile. Like canned corn on Christmas day.

I came behind her and slid my arms around her waist. I felt her lean her back against me, her head tucking neatly under my chin.

"This is the best present ever in the world," she said.

"I figured it out," I said. "You love my tacky red trench coat, don't you?"

"Well, duh," she said. "I've pretty much threatened to burn the thing a thousand jillion times." That meant love to her.

"We can keep the tree up straight through February," I said.

Nina paused. She hugged her arms over mine. "Even after it's all gross and rotten?"

I nodded, my chin brushing against the crown of her head. "We'll keep the rainbow lights strung across the porch and we'll just leave them shining, even during the day."

"And," she said softly, "and maybe some around all the windows? Kind of so we don't get pissed when we look outside and we're smothered in all that damn snow. Because then we won't be completely smothered if there are sparkle-colors on all the time, am I right?"

"All the way until the snow melts," I said.

I felt her tremble in her skin. "Really?"

I hugged her. "Or forever, if you want." I chuckled. "Though we'll probably need to replace the tree every once in a while. Don't want to expose our kid to Christmas radiation."

Nina didn't laugh. Just turned around in my arms so she was pressed against me with her nose buried in my chest. "You're completely kind of a weirdo, honey."

"I'm not the one on Santa's blacklist."

"Like I said. Weirdo." She stepped back in time for me to see a couple tears run not quite all the way down her face. "You're a pretty picture, you know that?"

I put my fingers under her chin and tilted her face up. And she called me pretty. "Know what?" I said. "When you cry and your eyes get kind of raw, you look like you're staring at me through rosebuds."

She smiled and went for a kiss, which usually required her going up on her toes and then yanking me down by my collar to meet her the rest of the way. Nina wasn't one to respect the 'public displays of affection' boundaries. One time, a few of the higher-ups were running late to a meeting at Central Command and Nina decided it was a good idea to make out next to the recycling bin while we waited. I usually had trouble protesting when she made decisions like that. Needless to say, the Fuhrer had been less than pleased when he'd walked into the meeting room. He actually proclaimed me to be dishonorably discharged from the military for a full ten minutes before Nina and her mom talked him down from it. Of course, the Fuhrer happened to be my father in-law, so he had his biases.

I parted from her lips and smiled down at her. "We're okay, right?" I said.

"Uh huh," she said. "Pretty much. Good as ever, I'd say. Maybe better. Good as ever's been kind of bleak at times, wouldn't you say?"

"I'd say so," I said. "But we're good."

"Yep," said Nina. Her eyes shifted to the side. "Except one thing."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She gave me a crooked smile. "I kind of need to make some returns at the grocery store after this."

I blinked. "Oh?"

"Kind of bought you corn for Christmas."

"Canned?" I asked.

She nodded. "Like, ten crates full. Not even joking. I had to pre-order the junk three months ago."

I felt a laugh coming up in my throat. "Nina?"

"Yeah?" She sounded like she was afraid of what I had to say.

"Keep the corn."

Her eyes widened. "Yeah?" Now she was looking peppy.

"We'll give them out as presents this year," I said.

She bent her knees just a little like she wanted to bounce. "Like, we're done with Christmas shopping?" she said.

"For the rest of our lives," I said. "Sound good?"

"Sounds perfectly perfect!" She swung her arms around me and rung my body so hard I coughed.

She backed off with an 'oops' face, knew I didn't like coughing, no matter what the reason, especially during the winter. I forgave her quickly. Breathing was easier around her anyway. Never knew why that was.

Nina was laughing borderline hysterically, babbling about hypothetical 'corn-overdose' situations. "Maize poisoning!" she said. "But we'll spell it M-A-E-S, because then we can say, 'Uh oh. Sounds like you're experiencing _Maes effects_.'" Didn't really know what was so funny about that, but I liked the way her voice got kind of breathless and scratchy when she laughed too hard, so I laughed anyway. Yeah, we were okay.

Nina reached up and tousled my hair the way she did to Uncle Roy when my dad gave him a hard time and he couldn't come up with a good come-back. "Yep," she said. "You're golden, baby."

The line was moving along. Nina had her sights set on Santa again. I had my sights set on the pink in her cheeks that was from laughing and now obviously not from the cold. I sighed and held her hand, a little nervous since I'd been perfectly serious about keeping that tree up until it was rotten and she knew it. Oh well.

Fin.


End file.
